


Careful Inside Where You Step

by spicy (suanla)



Series: door to a door to a door [2]
Category: Castlevania (Cartoon)
Genre: Cunnilingus, F/F, less porn than you would expect from an explicit fic tagged only w cunnilingus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:13:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26352457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suanla/pseuds/spicy
Summary: You’re no stranger to Carmilla’s brute strength, her capacity for cruelty. Yet, here you are, at her feet, wishing to be nowhere else. It comes with conditions, your being here. There are implicit boundaries you don’t cross. Generally, you don’t speak out of turn, you don’t touch her when she doesn’t invite or initiate, you don’t ask for more time than you are given. Why then? Why stay?Do you fear her? Yes, in some ways. You’d have to be incredibly stupid not to fear Carmilla even a little bit. At the same time, however— “Well, violence implies a lack of consent.”
Relationships: Carmilla (Castlevania)/Original Female Character(s), Carmilla (Castlevania)/Reader
Series: door to a door to a door [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1914898
Comments: 7
Kudos: 61





	Careful Inside Where You Step

**Author's Note:**

> really im just putting off my readings for class but please dont expect anything too sexy this is just some fake deep bullshit i needed to get out, its like 85% conversation and 10% pussy eating and 5% exposition 
> 
> some things:  
> PLEASE dont read if ur a dude. this is for bi women and lesbians and other people in the same vein  
> and also again, i tried to keep bodily descriptions really vague

The ride to the border takes only a few hours. The caravan arrives just as dawn breaks. 

Guards dismount first, then servants—you, among them. You were given your own horse, at least. 

First, the tents are erected; blacker than the night and sturdier too. Three go up in a row and around them, smaller ones for the troops. The biggest, in the centre, is Morana and Striga’s tent, also acting as their temporary war room.

You tie up your horse and approach the bustle, seeing about helping out with the setup. Just as you put down a crate, a commotion stirs from where you came. 

The carriage has arrived. 

From it, Lenore leaves first. She hops down, energetic despite the hour, and wastes no time before bounding off towards the centermost tent. After, Striga jumps out and turns to help Morana down. Together, they follow after Lenore, conversing quietly to each other as they go. None of them pays you any mind. 

Until, finally, Carmilla steps down. She smooths over a stray hair, pausing in her steps, and then blinks as if she’s just remembered something—ah, yes, you. She need only give you a single glance for you to understand to follow. 

You dart to your horse first, grabbing your rucksack, before making towards the 3rd tent, where Carmilla had disappeared into. 

Inside, the soldiers have arranged comfortable bedding, seating, a table, and a locked chest. For light, various candles are thrown across the space. When you come in, Carmilla makes a vague gesture at the table. You leave your stuff there. 

She’s already shed her jacket off, leaving her in a silky dress. 

“I’ll have to tend to a few things first. Won’t be long.” She looks a bit ticked off about it, but you know if you were to comment, she’d have you sleeping on the floor today. 

You just smile at her, at the side of her face, and shrug. “Okay.”

For whatever reason, she finds your response amusing. Before she slips out, she pins you with a look you can’t decipher, a curious upward tug at her lips. Then: “Undress for when I get back.”

Instantly, you flush. Though, there’s no one left to witness it. 

* * *

True to her word, she returns to the tent not long after departing. Still, in its short tenure, the war meeting had frustrated Carmilla greatly. There’s a simmering energy about her, stalking in with a pinch at her brows. 

You watch, perched on the edge of the mattress, as she pulls a chair out, perpendicular to the table. Then, she sits primly down, propping an arm up on the table next to her, and sighs. After a moment, she looks to you and beckons you over with two long fingers. When she speaks, she doesn’t sound angry, however. Curt, of course, as usual, but not angry. “Come on. Kneel.”

Hesitantly, you plant your bare knees into the dirt at her feet. It’s cold and dry which you’re grateful for; this way, you won’t have mud stuck to your legs, and there’s enough give to the ground that you won’t be bruised to all hell either. 

Carmilla absently cards her fingers through your hair, nails scratching lightly, pleasantly, at your scalp. Briefly, her eyes close. 

You swallow. Inch a little closer. “Something wrong?”

“Isn’t there always?” 

Her eyes open, so pale in the weak candlelight, you almost think you can look into her head through her eye sockets. But then her pupils darken at the sight of you, a grudging calm relaxing down her long face. Her hand drifts to your ear, rubs at the shell of it, and she sighs again. 

“Why do you allow me to assert such power over you, hm?”

You blink, surprised. “I… what?” 

For once, she doesn’t roll her eyes or otherwise express her impatience with you. 

Tonight, something weighs on her mind. She lets go of you only to wiggle and pull off her panties and toss them towards the bed. After, her hand goes back to your head, but she doesn’t urge you towards her centre. Just touches you, maintains the contact. 

“Is it out of fear?” she continues, “Fear that I would employ violence?”

For almost five moons now, you have been with Carmilla. And still even now, when she speaks to you expecting a response, you’re thrown off balance. Your time, so devoted to her, has consisted mostly of you listening to her, doing as she says, and frankly, getting nailed into her mattress, you hardly come across moments where she seeks _you_ for intelligent conversation. 

So, you stutter for a second before shutting up. You rest on your haunches, thinking. 

You’re no stranger to Carmilla’s brute strength, her capacity for cruelty. Yet, here you are, at her feet, wishing to be nowhere else. It comes with conditions, your being here. There are implicit boundaries you don’t cross. Generally, you don’t speak out of turn, you don’t touch her when she doesn’t invite or initiate, you don’t ask for more time than you are given. Why then? Why stay?

Do you fear her? Yes, in some ways. You’d have to be incredibly stupid not to fear Carmilla even a little bit. At the same time, however— “Well, violence implies a lack of consent.”

Carmilla snorts. She has a look on her face you have seen directed at you a few times now, just shy of fondness. Her hand, that had slipped down to cup the side of your neck, applies the barest hint of pressure. Your pulse beats wildly under her thumb.

Without thinking, you release a whine from your throat. 

“That’s right.” She grins down at you, a mean glint in her eyes. “You do enjoy a little pain with your pleasure, don’t you?”

Before you can reply, she’s dragging the hem of her dress up her thighs and tugging you in. 

Instinctively, your hands find purchase on the backs of her calves. The muscles of her inner thigh tense under the first touch of your lips. 

She returns to petting at you. Her mood, it seems, allows you a bit more time for foreplay. You pepper kisses along her thigh, making your way just to the border of where she wants you ultimately before switching to the other side. Every so often, your tongue peeks out from between your lips. Slowly, her skin warms under your attention. 

After a while, she hums and pulls at your ear. You huff a little in discomfort which only encourages her to tug harder. Faint spectres of pain arise in the peripheries of your awareness, but this is just Carmilla being cheeky. 

Resting a cheek on her thigh, you watch her from below. You do wonder sometimes: “Would you use violence against me?” She raises an eyebrow at you. Senselessly, you continue, “I mean, you could, and you would win.”

Carmilla scoffs. “Whether or not I would win is hardly the point, neither was it ever in question.” 

You shrug, smiling a little into her thigh. “That’s true.”

“Anyway, that’s what makes it violent, don’t you think? Brutal force towards a being who could not even think to overpower me.”

You consider it. “I suppose.” You pause only to nose at the hard line of her other thigh, breathing her in. “Though, I argue that I _could_ overpower you.”

“ _Ha_!” She presses her thumb into your cheek, just under the bone. “Would you like to try?”

This time, she very intentionally presses her nail in, and you wince at the sting. “God, no.”

Her face hardens. “Clarify, then.” 

She does so often change her mood on a whim. From pleasant banter to serious discussion. You consider your words carefully before speaking, your thumb idly drawing circles on her knee. 

“I mean to say: power is control,” you say, finally. 

A single sharp eyebrow raises up her forehead. “You? Controlling me?”

“I would argue yes, in some ways.” Her hand drifts to your forehead, her palm cold and heavy upon your head. You go to blink but find that your eyes don’t want to open. “Of course, you’re a ruler in every aspect of your life, including this one, I won’t be so foolish as to deny that. Power is to control, to dominate, to beget obedience.”

Above you, Carmilla hums amiably. “Reach your point.”

“You have power over me, yes. Like many things between us, this isn’t in question. What you say, I do—for the most part. You enjoy wielding power; I enjoy submitting to it.” You open your eyes to Carmilla’s unwavering gaze. “Power is an end. One which you have attained, yes, but it is still an end. An end which you must have reached by some means.”

“And what,” she asks, “do you suppose those means are?”

You take another moment to ponder your answer. In this time, you crane your neck forwards to lay an open-mouthed kiss at Carmilla’s centre. 

She jerks and her hand grips at your face tightly, painfully, in surprise. Her other hand, the one resting on the table, curls up into a fist.

“One such means is legitimacy,” you say, words coming out only slightly garbled from her pinching fingers. 

“The point,” she grits out. After a beat, she releases her hold and slumps a little lower in her chair. You flex your jaw. Softer, she repeats: “The point?”

This time, you decide against sneaky cunnilingus. Instead, you once again lean against her leg. “Legitimacy, or consent to your having power. How can you have power as a monarch without the consent of your constituents?”

“Easily enough,” she replies. 

“No, really.” You sit up, your hands slackening until they fall into your own lap. 

She takes advantage by draping both her legs over your shoulders. Nothing else happens, however, except that she motions for you to continue. So, you do: 

“Your troops are loyal to you, submit to you—your commands are followed. That’s power. But say they become unhappy. Say, your commands are no longer followed—you have lost legitimacy; you have lost power.”

Carmilla makes a thoughtful sound. Her ankles cross behind you, tapping lightly. “This is usually where the instrument of violence is employed.”

Boldly, you place your hands on her hips, and you lean forward. “Well, violence can indeed ensure you have more power than others but not by generating more power for you, rather, it suppresses the power of others. It is used when there is insecurity. A wavering power’s last option. I ask again: would you be violent towards me?”

For a long time, no words pass between you. Carmilla stares at you, and you stare back. Then, evenly, she answers. “No.”

“If I command you stop during sex, would you?”

The pause, when it comes, is nowhere near as long as the other. If you were more foolish, you would say it feels more so that she’s offended you even asked. Probably, she’s merely thinking you slow and tedious for dragging her through this conversation. “Yes.”

You wait, in case she has something more to say. When it’s clear she doesn’t, you continue. “In this hypothetical, I rescind my consent. You lose legitimacy and power. You wouldn’t use the instrument of violence against me to maintain your power. So, I have exercised power over you, evident by your willingness to follow my command.”

“You think that my not wanting to force you into fucking me counts as overpowering me?” she asks, in a deadpan. Now, there is a clear streak of annoyance in her voice.

You shake your head. “I think that overpowering sounds a lot more combative than what I’m talking about. In a few instances, I think you would willingly relinquish your power over me if I insisted and did so with good reason to back it up. Between us, our relationship, there is power based on consent which is based on trust. Most days, the power rests in your hands. Some days, it lays in mine.”

For a second, you think she’s going to say something about the “ _relationship_ ” label you’ve slapped on this dynamic between you. But her expression stays static and she tilts her head. “Then, I should really be asking of your apparently unwavering trust in me.”

Should you be offended by her use of “ _apparently_?” You personally consider your trust in her to be very apparent, thank you very much. In the end, you just shrug. “I suppose.”

She appraises you, then. Seeming to give her best attempt at telepathically gouging answers from your brain. 

For you, the eye contact is too much. You close your eyes and do what you know, and you know her. You know the taste of her. She’s ready this time, exhaling in pleasure as you lick at her, bottom to top. She’s wet, copiously so, and warm under your tongue. Cropped pubic hairs tickle at your nose. You change tracks to mouth at the outside of her vulva, humming into her when she rests a hand on your nape. 

“Well?” she breathes after you drag a wet stripe across to her clit.

You raise your chin, so you’re not speaking directly into her vagina like an idiot. “What’s there to say?”

She doesn’t seem so amused by your lacklustre answers. “You allow me power over you because, for whatever reason, you trust in me. Surely, you understand where my confusion comes from.”

You sigh. “This may be foolish, though I suspect you already think me simple, you matter to me a great deal.” She doesn’t confirm nor deny, although you do catch a funny twitch of her lips. You smile at that, at her. “So, I make a great effort to stay by your side.”

“For what?” she asks, shifting as you press a kiss to the top of her mound. “That doesn’t answer my questions.”

You thought this—your material needs which Carmilla takes care of—was common knowledge. “For everything which you provide me. Safety, guidance, a profound fulfilment. I trust that you continue to provide such things.”

Carmilla presses harder into your neck, a little urgently now. “Why? Where does this trust come from?”

“Because I think I matter to you, too,” you say simply. 

This still doesn’t seem sufficient. She doesn’t let up. 

“My body, you could take regardless of what I wanted. But you want more from me than what my body can provide.” Here, you very pointedly take your hands off her, instead, placing them folded on the tops of your thighs. 

She takes the sight of you in and huffs a laugh. “What? Obedience?” 

“Yes,” you say, trying to inject some conviction into your voice even as your face heats up. “I think the kind of obedience you ask of me is a particular kind, one that you could only have by maintaining my trust in you. This depends on me, on my whims.”

Carmilla sits still for a moment, processing what you’ve said. For the first time since she sat down, she looks away from you, over your shoulder. Then, she frowns. 

“Must conversing about power always be so convoluted.” She taps a finger first on your lips, then upon your chin, then beneath it, tilting your head up and keeping it there. “See, we have been talking in circles. Power, consent, trust; they are interlinked in this context. I trust you because I’m aeons ahead of you. I trust that no matter what, you could never beat me. In other words, I trust you because it is outside of your ability to harm me. Here, I trust you because I am powerful.

“You? You trust me because our interests align. And because they do, you enjoy the privileges, the power, I bestow upon you. But as soon as they fall out of sync, you have lost any reason to trust me. You have lost your power over me as I retain mine over you. As you said, overpower isn’t the right word. You can’t overpower me at all, no matter the situation. At best, we stand upon equal ground. Though, as you know, things are so rarely at their best.” 

You can’t see how any of this is relevant. Yes, she holds all the cards, and you’re at her mercy. But she likes you at the table, wants you there still; it doesn’t matter that she’s at an advantage.

The finger beneath your chin flicks away and returns to tap once again on your lips. 

“No.” You move away, backtracking, and she allows it. “Indeed, I want you; I defer to you. But you want me too. You want me in a way that requires some modicum of respect for me, that requires you to withhold violence. _You_ trust me because our interests align, not because you’re comforted by the knowledge that you could kill me with a single finger. Power isn’t just having a monopoly on violence. I trust you because I trust that you enjoy having me in this way, this way that requires my consent.”

“You’re right,” she says, gamely. “I enjoy wielding such power over you. I enjoy your obedience. But I would argue that the kind of obedience I ask of you, I _could_ attain through violence. I would argue that I don’t do so, simply because you give in to me so easily. Why should I force obedience from you when you have given yourself to me before I have thought to ask, or even to take?”

You have rebuttals, you do, but she anticipates it, shakes her head. You wait.

“For all that I am cruel and abrasive, know that I don’t mean to sabotage our... arrangement. I will instead implore that you think more deeply on this subject.”

You chafe at that, at the insinuation that you haven’t thought this through. You’ve had a long time to ponder your decision to stay in Styria. But in the spirit of cordial conversation, you reign in any untoward reaction. Instead, you take a breath and ask, “What do you mean?”

Carmilla smooths a hand over your hair. She’s pleased with you, you can tell. “When we first met, I had two needs to fulfil. The first was to drink. I did so even as you were shaking like a leaf. You did not consent nor protest. The second was, well, come now. That, you gave to me without a second thought.”

“And if I hadn’t?” 

She laughs. “That need I could take care of very easily myself, thank you.”

“Please, just explain,” you beg, and with all this talk of your first meeting, you can’t help but think back to it. Here you are, as you were all those months again, begging on your knees. 

“I’ll say this only once: I need you and want you, just as you need and want me.” You stop, kneeling stock-still beneath her. She wears an expression you have never seen before—a strange, resigned smile with those hard, pale eyes of hers. “This is not why you should trust me. I am, instead, stating what my interests are and setting the boundaries of where your trust in me should extend.” 

“Will you—”

She puts a hand up, effectively silencing you. “Let me explain. You provide for me, now, release and sustenance when I so need. And I have to admit, the taste of you, the feel of you, is addictive. I’ve grown used to your presence and the convenience it affords me—I take it for granted—as I should. You have become, to me, essential from where you were once a commodity. So, maintaining your life is in my interests. The bare minimum that is.”

Stubborn now, feeling so undignified from the way she has laid out exactly how you are so thoroughly secondary to her, smarting under her condescension, you snarl. “Will you give me a reason to trust you, then? What is the point of this?”

“No, I won’t. For that reason, you should watch your tone, pet.” Her voice is reed-thin, eyes narrowed, mouth set in a hard line as she stares at you down the line of her nose. 

You look away, at your fists, clenched in your lap. 

She continues: “You could argue, you are in more danger from me now than you were when we first met. After all, you are necessary to me, and so I have more reason to force you to keep providing. _But_ I would never consider employing violence to keep you. See, I don’t think I would ever have the need to; I don’t think you would ever deny me.”

“…But if I did, if I denied you, would you then just _take_?” You’re incredulous. Disbelieving. You don’t show it, posing the question as if you were taking her seriously.

“Are you considering doing so?”

“No. But—”

“Then, why should I entertain the idea?”

You look up at her, taking in the details of her face. She wouldn’t. She _wouldn’t_. “I think I know the answer, then.”

She quirks an eyebrow. “Do you?”

Again, she looks ready to counter your every point. You don’t want to hear it.

“Don’t make me say. Please, don’t. It’s complicated, you’re right. But can’t we leave it here? You trust me, and I trust you, no matter how fickle a thing you deem this trust to be.” You cup your hands over the tops of Carmilla’s thighs, rest your forehead against her abdomen. “We are both consenting adults, are we not? Right now, your power over me, I have consented to. If it ever comes to it, we can always renegotiate.”

“Enough, then,” Carmilla agrees. “Since you’ve allegedly legitimized my power so, allow me to exercise it, hm?”

Without more preamble, she guides your head back in, and you greet her with your open, willing mouth. 

This whole time, she’s been dripping. You lick between her folds, silky and hot on your tongue. Her thighs tense around your ears, keeping you from leaving, as if you’d ever. Soon, the bottom half of your face is covered in her slick.

And there it is—you think you understand what she’s saying. The things she needs, you want to provide. The things you need, she wants to provide. Though, in the end, you rely on her much more than she relies on you. For a variety of reasons, this is true: she is more self-sufficient and has access to vast material power such as her wealth, her military, her own limitless strength. In that way, she very concretely holds dominion over you. She would probably go as far as to say she has you leashed. 

Where she focuses on her power over you, and indeed she does have it, you set your sights on the knowledge that she wouldn’t exercise this power over you to intentionally damage you. That’s where you level the playing field. You may not have the violence her power does, but you do have the legitimacy. 

You tongue at her entrance, straining to hear for her curses between the vice grip around your head. She’s all compact muscle, tight around you, heavy upon you.

Change is never easy, would definitely involve Carmilla being her usual asshole self. It would take communication and patience and compromise. But that’s a relationship, isn’t it? Relationships are reciprocal, aren’t they?

You are two people capable of rational thought. When her needs and wants evolve, yours can surely change with hers, and vice versa. 

You dip into her as far as you can, and you do it twice more, before licking a path to her clit. Lavishing it in attention. 

It’s red hot in your mouth. You can’t help but move back to lap at her, drinking her in. Your tongue runs over and over the length of her, then higher. 

She bucks into your face, grinds into you. Slippery against your face. There’s a thump, distinctly like she’s slammed her fist on the table. The hand in your hair closes and pulls. You’re engulfed in her, anchored by her. 

You wrap your lips around her clit, flicking your tongue over her and sucking lightly. She grips onto you and your moan vibrates directly into her.

When she comes, you open up more, taking in as much of her as you can. Almost frenzied. 

Finally, she relaxes. Her legs fall slack, one slipping off a shoulder. 

She exhales, looking dazed. Her eyes are half-lidded, watching as you lick your lips. 

“How’s that for power?” you ask after a moment.

Before she can stop it, a genuine laugh escapes her and then her face twists up into a sneer, at your quip and at the fact you managed to elicit such a response. Her hand shoots out, squeezes tightly, and she drags you into her lap by the neck. “Oh, I’m going to bleed you dry, pet.”

Your arms slide loosely around her neck, your face into her shoulder, and she bites down. 

* * *

Your horse isn’t where you left it. You frown, beginning to look around, when the flaps of the centermost tent burst open. You make out, in the dim torchlight, the shapes of the Styrian monarchs leaving behind the war tent. 

Carmilla makes a beeline for you, shouting something towards a nearby guard on her way. 

The guard is already running back with her horse by the time she makes it to you. The horse is a giant thing, stark white, and regal. It suits Carmilla.

She offers you a hand up without so much as a word to you, ignoring your quiet thanks. After which she stands for a few moments to listen to Striga’s yelled last-minute thoughts before nodding at her from across the camp and hiking up behind you with ease. Her arms reach around you to take the reins.

You accept, placidly, the shift in dynamic. 

The horse takes off into a gallop soon after. 

Your destination lies on the other side of the Styrian border. 

From your place upon Carmilla’s horse, you watch as they lay siege on the adjacent lands. All-in-all, it accounts for four cities and populations of people in the high thousands. The last town to fall does so in the form of surrender, having had over three-quarters of their army slaughtered and suffering even greater in civilian lives. 

Striga, Morana, and Carmilla, one by one, twist the heads off the town leaders. Lenore leans on the pillars of the great hall, waiting for them to finish, and cleans the blood off her shoes.

This is the only time Carmilla gets her hands dirtied. 

This all takes place in the span of only one night. 

“If at first they don’t surrender,” Carmilla whispers to you later, breath hot against your skin. The points of her teeth scrape at the skin of your neck when she smiles. You can imagine the way she must look, feral, victorious, towering over you. “Conquer.”

You ride back home, bloody fingerprints on your cheeks, bleeding from your neck, in Carmilla’s arms.

**Author's Note:**

> turns out carmilla fuckers arent as rare as i thought they were lmfao so sorry im simping for that evil weirdo but they dont call me white womans whore for nothing
> 
> didnt edit this, probably wont edit this for a while, accepting constructive criticism


End file.
